News Coverage: Karen Lewis

This election, Chicago voters get to weigh in on how they think public school teachers should have their pensions funded. But critics of the referendum say it shouldn’t even be on the ballot. The non-binding referendum basically asks voters who should pay for Chicago teachers’ pensions: the city or the state? A popular talking point among Chicago aldermen is that city taxpayers get charged twice. Once for the city’s teachers’ pensions and once more for teachers’ pensions statewide.

Chicago Teachers Union members will go on strike Monday morning after talks failed to yield a new contract, the head of the union announced late Sunday. “In the morning, no CTU member will be inside our schools,” Karen Lewis said at 10 p.m. “Please seek alternative care for your children.”

The Chicago Teachers Union Tuesday afternoon applauded the mayor’s shift in his longer school day stance — cutting back his demand from 7.5 to 7 hours for elementary schools — but asserted the mayor has far to go on compromising.

Related:

Emanuel cuts proposal for length of elementary school day to 7 hours [Chicago Tribune]

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said Tuesday that Mayor Rahm Emanuel told her a quarter of the city’s public school students “are never going to amount to anything’’ and he won’t “throw resources at them” — comments Emanuel quickly denied through a spokeswoman.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday he’s sensitive to the “noise associated with change” caused by the decision to close or turn around 17 underperforming schools, but he said he’s more concerned about the deafening “silence of failure.”